Smile

A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a "Duchenne smile". Smiles performed without the eye contraction can be perceived as "fake".

Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences between different cultures, with some using smiles to convey confusion or embarrassment.

Historical background

Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. The smile may have evolved differently among species and especially among humans. Apart from Biology as an academic discipline that interprets the smile, those who study kinesics and psychology such as Freitas-Magalhaes view the smile as an affect display that can communicate feelings such as love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment.

Smile! (novel)

Smile! is a children's book by Geraldine McCaughrean. In 2004 it won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Bronze Award.

References

Smile (The Beach Boys album)

Smile (occasionally typeset as SMiLE) was a projected album by American rock band the Beach Boys intended to follow their 11th studio album Pet Sounds. After the group's songwriting leader Brian Wilson abandoned large portions of music recorded between 1966 and 1967, the band recorded and released the dramatically scaled-down Smiley Smile album in its place. Some of the original Smile tracks eventually found their way onto subsequent Beach Boys studio and compilation albums. As more fans learned of the project's origins, details of its recordings acquired considerable mystique, and it was later acknowledged as the most legendary unreleased album in the history of popular music.

Working with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, Smile was composed as a multi-thematic concept album, existing today in its unfinished and fragmented state as an unordered series of abstract musical vignettes. Its genesis came during the recording of Pet Sounds, when Wilson began recording a new single: "Good Vibrations". The track was created by an unprecedented recording technique: over 90 hours of tape was recorded, spliced, and reduced into a three-minute pop song. It quickly became the band's biggest international hit yet; Smile was to be produced in a similar fashion. Wilson touted the album "a teenage symphony to God," incorporating a diverse range of music styles including psychedelic, doo-wop, barbershop singing, ragtime, yodeling, early American folk, classical music, and avant-garde explorations into noise and musical acoustics. Its projected singles were "Heroes and Villains", a Western musical comedy, and "Vega-Tables", a satire of physical fitness.

Strange

Strange may refer to:

Fiction

Music

Doctor Strange

Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, best known under his alias Doctor Strange, is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by artist Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963). A former doctor, Strange serves as the Sorcerer Supreme, the primary protector of Earth against magical and mystical threats. Debuting in the Silver Age of comics, the character has been featured in several eponymous comics series and adapted in a variety of media including video games, an animated television show, and films.

In 2012, Doctor Strange was ranked 33rd in IGN's list of "The Top 50 Avengers". A Marvel Studios live-action film adaptation starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role is set for a 2016 theatrical release.

Publication history

Creation

Artist Steve Ditko and scriptwriter Stan Lee have described the character as having been originally the idea of Ditko, who wrote in 2008, "On my own, I brought in to Lee a five-page, penciled story with a page/panel script of my idea of a new, different kind of character for variety in Marvel Comics. My character wound up being named Dr. Strange because he would appear in Strange Tales." In a 1963 letter to Jerry Bails, Lee called the character Ditko's idea, saying,

Strange (TV series)

Strange is a British television drama series, produced by the independent production company Big Bear Productions for the BBC, which aired on BBC One. It consists of a single one-hour pilot episode screened in March 2002, followed by a series of six one-hour episodes broadcast in the summer of 2003. The supernatural storyline involved a defrocked priest's mission to destroy demons.

Plot

The series follows former priest John Strange (Richard Coyle), dismissed from the clergy under mysterious circumstances. He was implicated in a number of gruesome murders, murders that he says were done by demons. Now he seeks those responsible and to clear his name. To help him in his hunt for demons, John has Toby (Bryan Dick in the pilot, Andrew-Lee Potts in the series), a technological expert who is in charge of the equipment John uses to sense the presence of demons, and Kevin (Timmy Lang). Kevin has Down's syndrome, which appears to enable him to sense the presence of demons and is often an early warning that something supernatural is about to happen in the area. Jude (Samantha Janus), a former scientist who works as a nurse, is interested because she found out that her partner Rich was a demon. With Rich dead, her main concern is that the son they had together, Joey (William Tomlin), could also be a demon. John's mission is hampered by Canon Black (Ian Richardson), who is intent on denying the presence of dark forces.